Does anybody know what has happened? I thought the stock would move up
all week. $11.30 cash divy is huge. I can't believe this gem could be
selling for $25.00 on ex-date next week. It's beginning to look like
it.

There seems to have been some wavering in the Chinese market in this
last week.  Since there have been noise about the Chinese bubble for
months, people are a bit worried about funds focused on the region.

I did not see this phenom last year and do not see it now in other
funds.  I think it's because this fund took a serious hit in 2007
after the dividend was paid.  It went down from 31.48 on Dec 2006 to
25.45 on Jan 19, then perked up some and fell again to 22.03 some time
in March.  It didn't perk up past 28 until it declared the September
distribution.

So there is concern about the Chinese market as well as the history of
the fund itself from this past year.

I wished I had bought a bunch at 22.03 though.  What a bargain.

Here's a piece of related informtion.  Looks like people perceive sub
prime as beginning to affect the Chinese market.

==================================================

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoYTUtUiZIXc&refe...

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- BOC Aviation, Bank of China Ltd.'s aircraft-
leasing unit, aims to buy up to $2 billion worth of planes that
airlines have ordered and are unable to finance with bank loans
because of the global credit squeeze.

Asia's biggest lessor plans to more than double aircraft purchases
from airlines next year from the $700 million it bought in 2007, said
Chief Executive Officer Robert Martin. The Singapore-based company
received a $1 billion credit facility, its largest loan, from Bank of
China this month at a rate lower than it would get from other banks,
he said.

``With issues that are hitting financiers in Europe and US related to
subprime, we are now seeing a slowing down of liquidity growth in Asia
as well,'' Martin said in an interview yesterday. ``With a financing
market that is going to be tighter, this is the right time for us to
go back to the sale and leaseback market.''

[Snip]

Help! I am trying to make sense of GCH.
GCH is primarily correlated with the major US market indicies e.g.
SP500.
Looking at historical data I don't see any major price movements
around the ex div dates, and those dividends were a puny 1 or 2
dollars.
There was a small run up and sell within a few days of the ex div
dates.
Other than that GCH moved as an amplified version of the US (and
secondarily HK) stock market indexes.
This implies increased volitility.
I wish GCH would give more information on the dividend.
Whether it is a one time dividend or will it happen again.
Which holdings and what proportion of holdings did this come out of.
Were these cap gains leveraged so the core funds stay intact?
To my mind such a massive dividend appears to be "nuts" unless they
genuinely did insanely well this year.
With a yield ratio of nearly 30% this stock is grossly undervalued or
I am missing something.
Looking at the markets reaction to the dividend news, it's like there
was no reaction.
The bottom line, has GCH struck gold and if so will they do it again
or are the fund managers crazy?
Why do the market gods not care about the dividend, did they know
about it all along and it is already built into the price, or is this
off their radar screen being a closed end fund.
I notice that my market report Categorizes GCH as Avoid.

For the last two years GCH has paid two dividends per year.  Before
that, I believe that they paid once sometimes and twice in some
instances.  ALmost all funds have to pay some dividend at the end of
the year since the normal shuffling and rebalancing of holdings during
the year would result in some gains to be distributed.

Other than that I don't know.  Like I said there has been a lot of
noise about the high valuation of Chinese stocks, and the fact that
the U.S. is the leading importer of Chinese goods makes the prospect
of a slowdown in the U.S. economy a threat to the Chinese economy as
well.

But all this happened last year also and GCH did just fine this year
so I am personally holding what I have.  I'll decide on potentially
buying more when it falls (inevitable...) after the massive dividend.
GCH holds Hong Kong stocks which are not as nearly highly valued as
Mainland Chinese stocks, and a review of their holdings shows what I
believe to be solid companies.  It could certainly go either way but I
am comfortable with holding it.

etfconnect.com gives a great one page break-down of etf's and closed-
end funds. You will clearly see the amount and frequency of pay-outs.
Personally, I think they are still sitting on big unrealized cap gains
for '08. Why pay out nearly $13.00 in "07 and then leave yourself
"dry" for '08. If I were GCH management, I would not want to make it
so hard on myself in '08. And, if I started '08 with nothing juicy
from '07 - and, had a bad year in '08 - my record would look really
erratic paying out $13.00 one year and then next to nothing the
following year. I think GCH will do fine in '08. I'm long-term on this
one.

True.  If you will note, GCH was at a very high premium in December
2006.  That it would fall after paying the dividends is
understandable.  The manager at the time -- Wilfred Sit -- was
replaced in (to my best recollection) March.  I felt it was
unwarranted because Sit was in my opinion a perfectly competent
steward of the fund, but the nature of a closed ended fund is that it
can be overvalued and undervalued by market forces.  It was not Sit's
fault that market forces pushed the premium to unsustainable levels.

But Lillian Co seems capable enough as well so in the end it did not
affect the fund much.

This time it's a bit different.  As of this moment, etfConnect.com
puts GCH at -9.5% discount from NAV.  Assuming that the Hong Kong
market does not do something unexpected, GCH should have a better
January than the last one.

Then again anything could happen.  So you're on your own with the
decision.  Best of luck to you all, whichever path you choose.

a silly question: if you had been holding it for a few months, but
sold it before the ex-date, are you still entitled to have the
dividends? thx.

Um, no.

You need to have owned it *before* the Ex date held it through the
closing of the record date to be eligible.  Any other time period is
entirely irrelevant to this dividend payment.

Does anyone have some thoughts about GCH vs CHN as an investment?